Space or Space Space

July 26, 2009 · 3 comments

in Musings

When typing for the Web, do you still insert two spaces after a period?

I do.

Even though in HTML, it’s the same as only inserting one space, and so is an inefficient habit, I still hit the spacebar twice after every sentence.  I guess it’s a by-product of learning how to type in 1989.

  • Mitch

    In 1994, I learned in a newspaper class that you only used that for monospaced fonts (typewriters) and that for variable-width-character fonts, the kerning takes the space after a period into account. I haven't looked back since and snicker and laugh at the double-spacebarers. HA HA!

  • http://www.wisebread.com/ Lynn Truong

    Grammar Girls says that we need to move to the one space, since we're no longer in the monospace typewriter age, which was the reason to use double space in the first place.

    It's a hard habit to break though.

  • http://avocadoshake.net greggo

    The iphone's onscreen keyboard has the period character on a different
    screen, so you have to hit two keys to get a period. But it does have a
    shortcut for the period — hit the spacebar twice. It's a habit that will
    be with me for a while. :)

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